Adidas’ vice president of strategy, said during the tour

scarpe adidas outlet A sneaker in Speedfactory comes together so simply that it can be tough to understand why no one tried the concept before. But Adidas had to work hard to make it a reality. "A lot of these processes don't exist [in sneaker manufacturing]," Manz says. The robots it uses may already be common in other industries, but they had to be adapted to put sneakers together. To manufacture cars, electronics, or semiconductors, robots might use magnets, vacuums, or mechanical pinchers to handle the parts. But the materials in those industries tend to be rigid or fairly uniform. Those methods don't work well when dealing with a variety of soft, flexible textiles. Adidas and its partners had to create new ways for the machines.

scarpe adidas outlet online "We can simulate every aspect down to a machine level of how we can optimize the setup and the layout within the factory and therefore the production flow, which ultimately should help us on the one side to cost-optimize, but on the other side to have the quality of the product as well," says Michael Voegele, Adidas' chief information officer. As Speedfactory cranks away, each part it makes is tagged with a scannable QR code. During quality control checks, if there's a problem, they can trace the part back to the machine that made it, and know what the settings were on the machine. As Speedfactory makes more and more shoes, Adidas will be able to continuously refine its processes.

adidas scarpe saldi uomo Nobody else in the industry is doing anything like this, according to Manik Aryapadi, a principal in the retail practice of A.T. Kearney, a global strategy and management consulting firm that works with some of biggest players in the sporting-goods industry. Footwear and clothing brands frequently have their suppliers embed RFID tags in finished goods so that if they spot defects they know the factory responsible. But doing it at the component level is the sort of practice you see in high-tech industries, such as semiconductors. No other brand has so fully embraced automation either, or digitally replicated a factory to optimize for it. "Adidas is at the cutting edge," he says.

adidas scarpe saldi donne Automation has advantages beyond speed; it offers mechanized accuracy too. James Carnes, Adidas' vice president of strategy, said during the tour of the Speedfactory that in the average footwear factory in China, the sole and upper are joined with glue by hand. "The process is basically somebody stands there and goes—" he says, mimicking someone trying to line up the sole and upper by eye. "It's a really imprecise process." Adidas also avoids using glue wherever possible. It's messy and slow, needing time to dry, which is why Adidas prefers fusing pieces when it can. Because so much of the work is automated.